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SEC Classification (also called the Socio-Economic Classification) is a classification of households used by surveyors, market researchers, media and marketing companies in India to categorize consumer behavior. Originally developed by IMRB International as a way of understanding market segments, and consumer behavior it was standardized and adopted by the Market Research Society of India in the mid-1980s as a measure of socio-economic class and is now commonly used as a base for market segmentation. The SEC classification helps the marketers to identify segments that have high consuming potential. The high potential types: A1, A2, the medium ones and the bottom of pyramid ones.

The Media Research Users Council (MRUC) and the Market Research Society of India (MRSI) unveiled a new Socio-Economic Classification (SEC) system in May 2011, under which all Indian households are classified. The system classifies Indian households by using two parameters Educational Qualifications of the chief wage owner in the household; and the Number of Assets Owned (out of a pre-specified list of 11 assets). Based on these two parameters, each household is classified in one of 12 SEC groups
A1, A2, A3, B1, B2, C1, C2, D1, D2, E1, E2 and E3. These 12 groups are applicable to both urban and rural India. With the growth of the economy and of small towns and rural, it has become imperative to look at a single SEC classification system for both urban and rural India.

The top-most new SEC class A1 comprises of 0.5% of all Indian households. Nearly 2% of urban households and less than 0.1% of rural households belong to the new SEC A1. More than half of all SEC A1 households reside in the top six Indian cities
Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad. At the other end of the spectrum, the bottom-most new SEC class E3 comprises of 10% of all Indian households. Only 2% of urban households and 13% of rural households belong to new SEC E3. Nearly 93% of all SEC E3 households are in rural India.

SEC Classification of Indian Consumers
Source: http://www.mrsi.in/

SEC Classification at NCH

Consumer Helpline is using the SEC Classification to classify the callers into different stratas. The classification gives an insight into the profile of the people calling at NCH to redress their grievances. In order to classify the callers, information is obtained during the call received. A short questionnaire (the same used by MRSI and MRUC) is asked and the details of callers, who give their details voluntarily, are recorded. The details are used to obtain the SEC class to which each caller belong.

A summary report on the initial
sample is as follows:-

Analysis August 2013: -

The SEC classification was done for 1994 callers in the month of September 2013. This Can be seen from the chart below, most of the callers fall in the upper strata of the classification. The top 5 strata, i.e., A1, A2, A3, B1 and B2 comprise of almost 80% of all 1994 callers. Rests of the callers (20%) belong to the economic sections with Average Monthly Household Incomes equal or lower than Rs.3986. This indicates that the people approaching NCH are mostly from the well-off sections of society.

NCH publicity needs better penetration across all strata of the socio-economic fabric of the country and the reach needs to be improved in the rural areas especially. Though tele-density in the country is as high as 80%, still people across all sections are not calling NCH. Hence, awareness needs to be improved about the toll-free number.